


If this isn’t love, tell me what it is

by sadpendragon



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Break Up, F/M, Friendship, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 15:13:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15997859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadpendragon/pseuds/sadpendragon
Summary: Lancelot and Gwen were the perfect coupleor so it seemed





	1. Chapter 1

Lancelot and Gwen had been dating for awhile now. They went on dates all the time and Lancelot was the perfect gentleman. But although they might look like the perfect couple to anyone, Gwen sometimes thought their relationship lacked...fun. Lancelot was very cordial and nice and _always_ complimented her, but they never really seemed to laugh or joke together. But she didn’t mind, she was ready to settle down and she had found a good, no, a _great_ man.

Her father and brother didn’t seem to think the same…

They were all having dinner together, Elyan, her father, Lancelot and her. Lancelot was the one to subtly suggest a little get together, that’s how Gwen knew he was going to propose. Being the old-fashioned gentleman that he was, he was sure to ask her father first.

So at one point after dinner, when they had settled on the couches, her father went to go smoke on the patio. Lancelot had followed a minute later, telling her he’ll be right back.

And Elyan had raised an eyebrow at her, as she decided to go sneak after them. Right on time to overhear the question, she also managed to have a small view of their profiles through the split door.

“I would like to ask your permission to marry your daughter.” Lancelot said, with all the confidence and honour in the world.

Her father had smiled, and then just like that, he said no.

**_No._ **

Lancelot stilled for a moment but straightened up pretty quickly like nothing had happened.

“Then I shall work harder to prove my worth to you.”

“Listen Lancelot, what you and Guinevere have, it’s superficial. I don’t doubt that you love each other, but this started off as an infatuation and I honestly think you don’t really know each other. You’re holding her back. You were each other’s first love, but now you’re both stagnating in this pretence of a perfect relationship.”

“I’m sorry you think that way.” Lancelot’s voice had gotten more quiet but still held some confidence. Gwen on the other hand had to hold back her tears and decided to leave to go to the bathroom.

Elyan cornered her on her way out of the bathroom. “So, he refused.”

“I don’t understand, father always seemed to like Lancelot.”

“Gwen, I love you so I’m going to be blunt with you. He didn’t think it would last this long. He thought Lance was nice, sure. He was happy to see you date him for awhile, but he knew the moment you presented him to us, that this relationship wasn’t the one for you.”

“What the fuck. And you agree with him I presume?”

“Yes. You were more full of life when you had a silly crush on Merlin than the whole time you’ve been dating Lance! Sure you were smitten at first, but it didn’t last long did it?”

Elyan’s words were like a blow to her, she shook her head at him and scrambled away, hurt and disbelieving. How could they both be against her happiness like this, she had found the perfect man. She would quite literally not find a better man than Lancelot. If she wasn’t worth him, what was she worth?

When she arrived back in the sitting room, with Elyan trailing after her, Lancelot and her father both had gotten back.

She took her bag and swiftly said, “Lancelot I think we should get going.”

“Guinevere?” he father whispered, confused. She didn’t spare him a look but took Lancelot’s hand, to steer him away.

“Um, thank you for dinner it was splendid.” Lancelot quickly said, Gwen practically dragging him away.

“Come on let’s go. Goodnight father, Elyan.” And with a cold nod to both they were gone.

It was silent on the way home. The only thing Lancelot did when he dropped her off was take her hand, give him one of his charming smiles and tell her, “I’m assuming you somehow overheard our conversation. It’s ok Gwen, it will work out.” He kissed her hand, smiled and bid her goodnight, like everything was alright. So she smiled back, and pretended that it was.

Once she was comfortably installed in bed after a needed hot shower, she called Merlin.

“Hey pumpkin.”

“Oh no, the pitty nickname. You talked to Lancelot already.” She huffed, it didn’t help their cause that Lancelot seemed to share his secrets with Merlin but would just tell her ‘everything is ok’.

“Yeah… He told me what your father said, he was pretty upset. Are you okay?”

It’s ridiculous that she had to hear from Merlin how Lancelot was really feeling.

“I’m…lost,” she whispered.

“I’m so sorry pumpkin, I’m sure it’ll work out. You guys love each other, maybe you just need to brake the routine? Get out of your comfort zone and go on a little adventure.”

“So you think my father is right? That our relationship is boring and fake!”

“That’s not what I meant, you know that.”

She sighed, “Sorry, I’m tired.”

“Want me to come over tomorrow?”

“Don’t you have that party for your friend who got back from working overseas?”

“Yes but he’s a prat and you’re an angel, I’d cancel it all for you.”

She laughed softly, “Are you sure you guys are friends? You seem to be insulting him an awful lot. I should meet the man that gets cheery old Merlin always frustrated.”

“Oh my god yes! You should come to the party. Get your mind cleared up.”

Gwen couldn’t remember the last time she went to a party that wasn’t some fancy work dinner of Lancelot’s.

“I guess I could come.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by the prompt: ‘Person A goes to Person B's parents to ask for their blessing to propose and is refused‘ by otpprompts on twitter.
> 
> It started out as a drabble but I decided to turn it into something longer!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next two chapters will be less Gwencelot centric first.

In the morning, like Merlin had proposed, Gwen was on her way to his place so they could spend a quiet moment together before the party. Though she had been hesitant to accept, asking if, considering things, he didn’t want to spend it with Lancelot instead. But for some reason he was only seeing Lancelot tomorrow. Gwen found out about the reason the moment she was let in the appartement, as a tall blond man was the one to open the door. Although it had been a week since she had physically seen her friend, she was quite sure Merlin still had black hair. And wasn’t quite that broad. The man did have piercing blue eyes that could match Merlin’s own. Gwen was staring, but well, so was the stranger.

“Are you both just gonna stand there?” they both simultaneously turned to Merlin’s voice behind the blond, “Oh,” he faignted shock, ”did I forget to mention it was all three of us today? How rude of me, let me do the introductions. Gwen this is Arthur, my failed tinder match turned friend. Arthur, this is Gwen my bestfriend. Would you _please_ let the lady enter the damn appartement.”

“Right, sorry.” And the blonde, _Arthur_ , let her pass, then quickly added, “I’m gonna go shower,” and he was gone.

“Well, nice to meet you too,” she whispered sarcastically after Arthur.

“Sorry he does that sometimes,” Merlin said apologetically, and she was reminded of his presence and stared him down.

“What the heck merlin?”

“Would you like a cup a tea? I’ll go make some tea.” And he ran to the kitchen, like the coward he was.

“Merlin Balinor Emrys explain yourself,” she demanded, chasing him to the kitchen. “This is why you aren’t meeting up with Lancelot, because you already had plans with Arthur! But then why the hell did you invite me for?”

“Well you said you could use some distractions and Arthur and mines strange relationship is very entertaining. I promise. Also he’s been in a weird mood, I could use a bumper to deal with his shenanigans.”

“Why didn’t you invite Lancelot, be between lads.”

Merlin hesitated, taking his time to serve the tea, “Well, to be honest I didn’t want Lance and Arthur to meet yet…”

“Why?”

Merlin was scrapping his hair awkwardly, “It intimidated me ok? I don’t know why.”

This was curious. Lancelot and Arthur were–with Gwaine and her–considered his bestfriends, and generally Merlin couldn’t wait for his bestfriends to meet. She remembers how she met Gwaine; Merlin had asked both to meet at the bar, she arrived before Merlin and Gwaine had started flirting with her, not knowing who she was. This bestfriend ritual of Merlin is also how she met Lancelot…

“And anyway,” Merlin continued, taking a sip of his tea, “when I told Lance I was with Arthur, he didn’t want to bother us.”

She rolled her eyes at him, “Well obviously, I wouldn’t have come either if you had said so, you sneaky bastard.”

Merlin gave her a display of his adorable puppy eyes and she took a sip of her tea to hide her smile.

“Hmmm, anyways please never call us lads again, and stop pretending like you don’t like hanging out with _the lads_ , you’re basically one of us.”

She did hang out with the boys a lot, and that hadn’t changed since she dated Lancelot. What changed was how Gwaine stopped ‘flirting’ with her, what changed was the momentarily moments of jealousy she had over how Lancelot joked with Merlin. Don’t get her wrong, she wasn’t jealous of them or Merlin, that’s not who she was, Lancelot was Merlin’s friend before dating her. The thing that hurt was the realisation that, even though she was exactly the humorous type, Lancelot didn’t initiate any kind of jokes with her, like he did with Merlin. That’s why she missed Gwaine’s flirting, because it was a game, a joke between them. It was just for fun. But Gwaine seemed uncomfortable doing that now. She assumed it was because he wasn’t close to Lancelot, and anyone who isn’t always presumed he was a bit stuck up. He isn’t really, although it’s been awhile since they both hung out with the whole gang, she thinks it’s more because they’ve been focusing on growing their relationship. The growth which she remembers her loved ones had seen as boring, the growth which her father abruptly had stopped by saying _no._

“Whatever,” she replied, “I’m going to the loo.”

She got up as Merlin winked at her and went to go to the bathroom. She was in front of the door when Arthur came out of it, towel hanging low on his waist, chest bare. Gwen’s face turned scarlet red.

“Arthur!”

“Gwen.”

Although she was seriously blushing, it was more because of the fact that it had all happened so abruptly. So the moment Arthur flashed her a cocky smile and raised eyebrow the charm was over. Yes she was an awkward bean half of the time but seeing a hot body was something she was quite used to ok.

“Can I pass?” she said with all the calmness she could muster. He moved forward and she entered quickly without sparing him another look.

Merlin was cleaning out the teacups when she entered the kitchen again, Arthur entered only a moment later.

“We should go get lunch together outside,” Merlin stated.

Several things happened at lunch. The waiter got Arthur’s (ridiculously specific) order wrong, so Arthur exploded on the poor young man. Then Merlin sarcastically reprimanded him, which in turn started a mild row between them. Gwen got enough of their bickering and shouted, “Will you both shut up! And _you_ ”—she pointed at Arthur—“stop being so fucking rude!”

It had stilled Arthur in a nanosecond. Shocked, surprised maybe that this tiny woman he didn’t know, would talk to him like that. Merlin was hiding his grin…poorly. The remaining of the lunch was pretty quiet; Arthur was sulking, Gwen was annoyed, but Merlin surprisingly seemed very chipper, being the only one to try and hold some conversation. It did help calm the mood down as Arthur started to stop sulking and reply to Merlin with more than little grunts.

“So, your father still spamming your phone with calls and messages?”

“I can’t take it anymore, I’m ready to just block him. How did my sister get out of his hold sane or alive!” He made a sort of dramatic hand movement, like he was asking the skies to solve his problems, it made Merlin chuckle.

“Speaking of fathers, did you talk to yours yet pumpkin?”

She rolled her eyes, “Not until he rights this.”

Merlin seemed surprised, “You mean until he says yes to Lance?”

“Of course. But um, let’s talk about this another time. So what are the plans for the party, who’s coming?”

Arthur was intrigued when she was talking about her father and Lancelot but was now back to being very interested in his lunch and not her.

“Just a few of Arthur’s close friends, I know most of them. There’s Mithian, Arthur’s best friend, with her girlfriend Elena, haven’t met her yet. There’s Leon his other bestfriend which I totally have a boner for—“

“Stop saying that when I’m around!” Arthur interrupted him, “And he’s straight, get over it.”

“No, you stop being a little ignorant acephobe he’s your best friend!” he shook his head at Arthur. “He’s asexual and hasn’t figured out his romantic attraction, probably on the ace spectrum there too,” Merlin explained, more to her than Arthur. “Anyways, there’s also gonna be Percy! And well…”

“Oh no Merlin you can’t be serious,” she groaned, “Elyan is gonna be there?” Elyan was, you see, Percy’s boyfriend.

“Oh right Elyan is your brother.” Arthur suddenly stated, looking at his drink, “I forgot.”

Weirdly, that made Merlin smile, “Arthur used to have a huge boner for Elyan! After only meeting him once!” Merlin proclaimed, huge smile on his face before Arthur gave him a slap on the back of his head.

Gwen smiled and rolled her eyes in amusement, “Anymore surprises I should be made aware of?”

“Well,” Merlin said and Gwen was already glaring at him, “Morgana will be there…”

Gwen’s eyes practically jumped out of her eyesockets, “From where do _you_ know Morgana?”

“She’s my sister,” Arthur responded instead, “why?”

Gwen passed her hands on her face, keeping them there she muttered, “She’s my boss.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna write the party but it got too long and I wanted even and not too long chapters. This was entirely written on my phone and not beta’d....


	3. Chapter 3

The trio had gotten back to Merlin’s appartement and were now in the process of setting everything up. Arthur had complained, saying it was his party so he shouldn’t be working for it. Gwen said that that was exactly why he should be setting it up and that he should be grateful they’re even helping or that Merlin lend his apartment for it.

Evidently Gwen was still annoyed with the specimen that was Arthur. Arthur however, now just kept quiet and avoided her eye contact whenever she reprimanded him, but he didn’t look mad anymore.

The first to arrive, of course, was Percy, with Elyan. Arthur was the one to welcome them in and Gwen escaped to Merlin’s room. She was laying down Merlin’s bed when Elyan entered the room, leaning on the doorframe he was wearing a sad expression.

“Hey little sis.” Gwen didn’t answer and looked away, fixing the ceiling. “You’re gonna hurt Percy’s feelings if you don’t go say hi, you know he absolutely adores you. If he wasn’t gay it’d be concerning,” he finished with a smirk, trying to lighten the mood.

“It isn’t Percy’s feelings who are hurt,” Gwen said without missing a beat, “I’m not ready to talk to you, so please, let’s ignore each other tonight. You can call me tomorrow,” she then added, “to apologise of course.” She got up and tried to pass him, they shared a look before she pushed through.

When she got to the living room again, Arthur was swinging around a brunette woman in his arms. He let the woman down and as she caught Gwen’s eyes she raised her eyebrows, “Well well who’s this,” she advanced on Gwen and immediately kissed her cheeks. “I’m Mithian, I’m pretty sure I know all of this rascal’s friends, so what’s your name?”

Gwen, stunned, replied faintly back, “Uh, I’m Gwen.”

The woman, Mithian, turned back to Arthur smirking, “I’d be mad I’m only meeting her now but she’s absolutely beautiful I totally understand why you’d keep her away from me. Right honey,” she winked at a blonde woman behind her, who was now trying to hide her snort behind her hands.

Arthur took hold of Mithian by her shoulders, “Oh my god Mith please stop talking! Gwen is Merlin’s friend.”

But that didn’t stop Arthur’s bestfriend from smiling, “Hmmm okay,” she turned back to Gwen, “well, it’s nice to meet you Gwen. Elena! Come say hello!”

The blonde advanced, shared a smirk with Mithian and just like her, kissed Gwen on the cheeks. “I’m Elena, this crazy bird’s girlfriend.”

Gwen smiled and while she was telling Elena it was nice to meet her, Mithian had gotten hold of a strand of Gwen’s hair and gave it a little twist before letting it go.

Arthur was looking at the exchange exasperated and seemed glad the door ringed, dragging Mithian on the way with him.

Percy took Gwen’s momentarily confusion to sneak up on her from behind, and swing her in his arms. Percy’s hugs were the best hugs, his big arms held nothing but warmth and softness. She had loved Percy the moment Elyan had introduced them, she had thought it was the same for Elyan with Lancelot…

While she was chatting with Percy, Merlin and Elena had joined Elyan who was sitting on the sofa. A moment later Arthur and Mithian came back with, what Gwen presumed was Leon. Arthur introduced Leon to Elyan, Percy and her; the rest already knew each other.

After the introductions Arthur proposed they all sit down to eat, he said if they were to wait for his sister they’d starve first. So they sat down raised a glass to _‘Arthur’s freedom’,_  whatever that meant and started to enjoy some food. Conversations flew and Gwen tried to ask a few subtle questions to find our more about, well...anything.

Here is what she found out: Mithian and Arthur used to work together, before he quit, which was apparently what this party was about; Arthur quitting. Weird. Second thing, Percy and Arthur knew each other because they were gym buddies. Of course. They had hung out for lunch with a small group of people at the gym a few times, and Percy and Arthur connected. Arthur had to go to work overseas before he could introduce Percy to his friends though. Elyan had joined them once on one of their gym lunch dates. She presumed that that’s when Arthur had had a little crush, like merlin had described, though with _different_ words.

Morgana arrived when Mithian was serving three shots for everyone, because this wasn’t a party without shots, her words. Morgana greeted everyone before advancing on her, “If it isn’t my favourite jeweller,” she said with a bright smile.

Gwen smiled back but rolled her eyes slightly at her, “I thought you loved all your workers equally mylady.” Morgana winked at her in response, whilst accepting Mithian’s three shots.

_Mylady_ was a nickname they had given her with the other women at the industry. Morgana was a good boss, she was kind and fair. She was also stern and serious and kind of a badass.

They all took the three shots and right after that Mithian initiated the dance floor.

“So tell me,” Gwen asked rounding up on Morgana, “because you may be stern, but you’re also one of the kindest persons I know, how in the world are you related to Arthur?”

“Well,” she smiled, “he might surprise you. You have to get to know him, he’s stubborn. We’ve got a lot in common actually for half-siblings.”

_Oh_. That explained the lack of physical resemblance.

The party went well, they were all _very_ tipsy. Mithian and Elena kept trying to flirt with either her or Morgana, it was actually really cute; they flirted with you like you were part of a three-partnered dance, and it fitted.

Gwen was surprised when at one point during the party Arthur came to her, to apologise.

“I’m really sorry about being so mean today, I’ve been so on edge, which I know is not an excuse. Sorry for the bad first impression, can I make it up to you?’ He gave a lopsided grin, he was, of course, a bit drunk. Gwen accepted his apology and he smiled and installed himself close to her on the couch, she was a bit dumbfounded at his actions but hesitantly smiled back. Surprisingly they talked about a lot, food he discovered that she should try, Arthur’s plan to change careers–he had always wanted to be a firefighter growing up. She now knew that the reason they were celebrating him quitting, was because he had a very toxic relationship with his father, who was his boss; and he didn’t even really like (or choose) this job, so the added hair-pulling pressure didn’t help. They continued talking about random stuff, what they liked and didn’t like. When Arthur casually asked her about her favourite colour, the first thing she stupidly thought about was that she didn’t even know what Lancelot’s favourite colour was. Arthur’s was blue.

The party had started to calm down, Percy, Elyan, and Morgana had all in turn interrupted their conversation to say goodbye. Gwen was just thinking she ought to be going too, and like he could sense that she was planning on leaving, Arthur asked, “We should meet up again sometime, hang out?”

Arthur eyes were dilated, hope written all over his face. Gwen got disoriented and replied with the first thing that came to mind, “Um, I have a boyfriend.” She can’t believe she just did the ‘sorry I have a boyfriend’ thing, wow.

Arthur chuckled lightly but Gwen thought she could see some sadness in his eyes, “Yeah I remember, but there’s no reason we can’t be friends.”

That sounded nice, Arthur was interesting, if not intriguing, and he had made her laugh. So she gave her his number and went to bid goodbye to the rest, Merlin accompanied her to the door.

“Arthur seems to like you now.”

She shrugged, ”We were just chatting.” Merlin smiled, like he had just achieved something, probably glad his bestfriend ritual still worked...

**           **** **

After Arthur had paid goodbye to the last of his guests he went to find Merlin in the kitchen. He found him on the phone, looking rather glum, “Hey Lance…yeah she was fine…she had a good time,” Merlin’s expression turned sad, “you know I would have invited you but…yeah…I’ll see you tomorrow, goodnight.” He shut his phone, placed it on the table and took a beer.

Merlin was wearing an expression Arthur knew too well. Love problems. Arthur entered the kitchen fully, “So,” he started while Merlin took a swing of his beer, “you’re in love with Gwen’s boyfriend.” And Merlin swiftly spat his beer out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TADA! (I actually find my writing here super weird even though I really like the content....weird.)
> 
> I hope I handled the change of POV well, ugh.
> 
> I promise there will be more gwencelot angst soon, or more accurately as you can now guess, gwencelot/arwen/mercelot angst :))) I will continue to add tags as I go. Comments are greatly appreciated :>


	4. Chapter 4

It was a week after their family dinner when Gwen woke up to a text from her father. _‘I hope you will be happy’_ , is the only thing it said; and before she could question the cryptic message any more, Lancelot called.

“Good morning darling, how are you?”

Gwen could hear the joy in his voice instantly which made her smile. This was the same voice he had when he had just won a new deal at work, or when he first got his promotion.

“I’m good, you?”

“Yes, good. So I’m going out of town tomorrow, remember I told you about it?”

Of course Gwen knew this, she nodded amused. He _knew_ that she knew. Even in the unlikely event that he had forgotten to tell her, Gwen had his schedule send to her agenda every month, he had made those arrangements after all.

”I was hoping I could take you out to dinner this evening? Spoil you a little before I’m off?”

That made Gwen smirk, _‘spoil you’_ was code for a very fancy dinner. She didn’t particularly care about those stuff, but this was Lancelot’s way to show her his affection with a special gift. Lancelot was big on romantic gestures. Gwen enjoyed getting flowers, picnicking...the simple stuff. But Lancelot saw dinners as the big stuff, she didn’t. But she didn’t mind much, she knew that Lancelot did it to please her and that was enough.

“That would be lovely darling.”

“I’ll come pick you up at 5pm, if that’s good for you?”

“Great, see you tonight, love you.”

“Love you too.”

They ended the call and Gwen got out of bed, the prospect of a good evening cheered her up, it had been a hard week after all. She had mainly spent it working and ignoring her father and Elyan. She hoped by doing so, she would finally get their wicked words out of her system. Sadly, it had had the opposite effect. Instead of not thinking about what they had said a week ago, she couldn’t freaking stop thinking about it! Of course it was because she had been hurt and disbelieving as to what they had said, not because she paid their nonsense any truth. During the last week, they had both tried to apologise though. But Gwen still felt hurt, the excuses hadn’t felt real, and she couldn’t seem to move past it.

But romantic dinners always ended good, she was determined to have a good date and vowed to do everything to stop thinking negatively. Trying to relax her mind, she entered the bathroom, going to get ready for work.

 ****  

Gwen was looking in the mirror, she was wearing her favourite little yellow dress. Well, that was a lie, it was Lancelot’s favourite dress. And she planned on spending a good night with him, if not at dinner, certainly after that. She twisted a curl hanging out of her bun absentmindedly, while thinking of the first time she had worn this dress. They had gone picnicking, and when Lancelot had driven her home, she had taken hold of his tie and guided him inside her home. He had been so patient with her on that front, never asking to come in after getting her home, but Gwen hadn’t even wanted that. To be honest, she had been horny and had met the perfect prince charming, so there was no need to wait in her agenda.

When they got to her room, Lancelot had carefully unzipped her dress, while pressing his soft lips on her shoulder, he had murmured softly onto her skin that this was his favourite dress. Their first time had been so good, so tender, so right. Like every other time after.

She was just thinking about the fact that she wouldn’t mind if they had dared explore the wilder side of things once in awhile, if she was honest, when the door ringed, waking Gwen up from her reverie. She took her oversized black blazer on the way out and went to open the door.

“You look absolutely amazing Gwen.”

Gwen smiled at the compliment and started studying his expression. She had been doing that a lot lately she realised, _studying him_ . In the beginning of their relationship she used to blush at all his compliment. And he still complimented her of course, very much so actually. The thing was that, his compliment were _always_ the same. The same proper, romantic, _basic_ , compliments. By the books. Was it stupid that she felt it took away the specialness of the thing?

As a matter of fact, Lancelot’s face, she realised now while studying him, was the same when he complimented her as when he was just looking at her through casual conversations. Once upon a time that look was special. He looked at her like she was the most beautiful girl in the world, all the time. So why was she complaining? He didn’t give that look to any other girl. And if she believed his uncle, he had never looked at any girl that way.

“Thank you, you look great too,” she finally mustered after staring too long.

“Shall we go then?” he took her hand and lead her to the car, opening the door for her before getting in himself.

On the road, looking out at the city lights while the music blazed her ears, Gwen reminisced about the first time she had met Lancelot. Merlin had only known Lancelot for a week before proclaiming themselves best friends. A week is also all it took for Gwen and Lancelot to start dating. For Lancelot though, it had been love at first sight, if he was to be believed. She remembered how they had been standing in front of the movie theatre with Merlin, when Lancelot finally showed up.

Gwen had thought he was handsome, but that was it, no sparkles. Merlin had introduced them to each other, Lancelot had smiled at her and held her hand, a little longer than necessary. Gwen remembers thinking him odd, she had liked that. After the movie they had all gone out for some fish and chips. Lancelot had looked captivated by her during the whole evening, it had made her blush and she smiled as she remembered this. Lancelot had made her feel beautiful then, special. But when had been the last time she had felt special...

“We’re here.”

The place they had arrived to was the first fancy restaurant Lancelot had ever taken her to. Lancelot hadn’t taken her back here actually. But Gwen didn’t think much of it as they settled down and looked at the menu. The dishes here were amazing, and so were the drinks. Time passed quickly as they ate and talked about their day, work, about his trip...like a good couple would.

In hindsight she should not have been surprised when her favourite classic song started playing, and Lancelot smiled up at her as he got down on one knee.

Her father’s message, Lancelot’s excitement, this restaurant…

And all Gwen could think—as she looked down at her boyfriend’s face—was, _finally_.

“Guinevere Thomas, “ a few tears were forming in Gwen’s eyes, because finally this was happening. The next step, the next chapter in her life. To Gwen, this was an achievement. To have found a man as good as Lancelot and having built a respectable relationship who she’ll hope will lead to a respectable home, was amazing, “...would you do me the honour of becoming my wife?”

“Yes, yes please.”

And he put the, _gigantic_ , ring on her finger. He stood back up, and kissed her, the sounds of the cheering clients drowning out her song. They kissed and they kissed and they kissed. And there were no sparkles. But she was happy.

****

As soon as they got to her place, clothes were being taken off before they even reached her room. Lancelot never wasted anytime, like sex was a job to be done, and well, he did the job well.

After they were done, laying satisfied next to each other, Lancelot turned to her, kissed her shoulder and said, “You should celebrate tomorrow. Tonight was our night but I’m sure it’ll still be very euphoric tomorrow,” he smirked and added playfully, “I hope!”

Gwen chuckled lightly before questioning, “You’re not here tomorrow, so what are you talking about?”

“Maybe call Merlin. I’ll probably tell him the news in the morning. You could go celebrate between friends, think of me when I’m on my flight.”

“Hmm sounds like a plan. I’ll miss you…,” she added whispering, ”I hate it when you have to leave for so long… Sorry, I know you don’t like me to talk about it.”

Not that he had ever told her that, but she knew. It was like anything negative in their relationship wasn’t discussed.

He let out a tired sign, “I know love, but those deals are important for our future,” he kissed her shoulder again, “I’d like to buy a big house one day for us, and—” his hands were suddenly on her naked belly, a soft caress, “our children?”

This instantly made Gwen perk up, they had never discussed this before. She had never dared be the one to breach it first. But children had always been a dream of her.

Growing up, they hadn’t always had financial security, it had been hard at times before Elyan had decided to not go to school and started working. He had done and sacrificed so much for them, for her. She had gone to college, and had felt guilty later when she had decided to apply at Morgana’s industry as a jeweller, not putting her degree to good use. But they had all been surprised when discovering the length of Morgana’s business. Let’s just say, Morgana paid her workers well, the fact that a part of her earning also went into a women’s charity was amazing. She had a lot of admiration for her boss.

And as Lancelot’s soft hand slowly brought her back to the present, lastly she remembered her own vow. That she would only have children if she could promise them a good life. And her life with Lancelot was good. She took hold of his hand on her belly and smiled at him. They were going to be a family, she was going to live the perfect life she had always dreamed of as a little girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, this chapter was unreasonably hard for me to write… hopefully it won't take me that long again to post, sorry!


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